![]() Tens of thousands of people died, perhaps as many as one-third of Athenians. ![]() In 430–429 B.C.E., Athens was devastated by a mysterious epidemic, which reared its head again a few years later. We continue to admire Athens’s architectural splendor, stage its tragedies and comedies, and marvel, especially, at much that its democracy (the world’s first) wrought: participatory government, equal treatment before the law in private disputes, a distaste for class consciousness, juries made up of citizens, and tolerance about others’ personal lives.īut soon after Pericles gave that prideful speech, the original democracy got sick. “Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now,” Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, declared in his funeral oration, a celebrated speech in the winter of 431–430 B.C.E. ![]()
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